STOWAWAYS ON SHIPS 427 



The parish of Dunnet in Caithness, and also Liddesdale 

 in the Lowlands boasted a similar immunity, and earth 

 from these districts was in great demand for flooring barns, 

 which thereby became, it was believed, ratproof. 



Unfortunately all the stories do not testify to the absence 

 of Rats, and Martin in 1 703 gives a curious account of their 

 abundance in the Outer Hebrides, which will serve at the 

 same time to indicate how great a plague the troublesome 

 immigrants from overseas had become. 



I have seen a great many Rats in the Village Rowdil [in Harris], which 

 became very troublesome to the Natives, and destroyed all their Corn, Milk, 

 Butter, Cheese, etc. They could not extirpate these Vermin for some time 

 by all their endeavours. A considerable number of Cats, was employed for 

 this end, but were still worsted, and became perfectly faint, because over- 

 power'd by the Rats, who were twenty to one ; at length one of the Natives 

 of more sagacity than his Neighbours, found an expedient to renew his 

 Cats Strength and Courage, which was by giving it warm Milk after every 

 Encounter with the Rats, and the like being given to all the other Cats after 

 every Battle succeeded so well that they left not one Rat alive, notwith- 

 standing the great number of them in the place. 



Since these days the Black Rat has disappeared from 

 many places other than Harris. With the appearance of 

 the Common or Brown Rat in the middle of the eighteenth 

 century, its villany was out-villained, and it gradually sank 

 in spirit and in number as it was ousted by its pushing 

 rival first from the seaport towns and finally from places 

 inland. It was common in rural Aberdeenshire till 1830, 

 was "not very uncommon" in Keith in 1838, and had a 

 colony at Cairnton of Kemnay in 1855. In 1813 it was the 

 only species known in Forfar. In Moray it occurred in 

 1844 but had disappeared shortly afterwards. In Edinburgh 

 it still lingered in 1834, driven like the human outcasts of 

 fortune to "the garrets of the high houses in the old city," 

 while its successful relatives battened in the cellars and the 

 sewers. 



Now the Black Rat has almost gone 1 . Some still exist in 

 South Ronaldshay in the Orkneys, and occasional fresh 

 stowaways land and attempt to gain a footing in the great 

 seaports where they once swarmed (there are recent Scottish 

 records from Leith, Greenock, Glasgow, Paisley, and Torry, 



1 Although recent reports (Nov. 1919) indicate that it has again got a 

 foothold and is increasing in some seaport towns of England. 



